Amour et famille

Eastside Road, October 2, 2010—

BREAD AND WINE, the twin staves of life. We have two friends, brothers, members of a warm, close, intelligent family. Both entered the Chez Panisse family as youths, still in their 'teens, I think, starting as bussers and moving effortlessly into the kitchen, where they excelled. Both then went into business, the older establishing a well-known, very successful bakery whose products we remain enthusiastic about, the younger developing a wine import business concentrating at first on wines from Burgundy.

Yesterday the younger celebrated his and his wife's fiftieth birthdays and the twentieth birthday of his business with a party at Camino, the Oakland restaurant run by another Chez Panisse veteran, Russell Moore. Since all these Panissers seem to hold to the motto I try to make one of my own — Generosity and Gratitude — the menu was extensive, on both the food and wine sides. We had:

appetizers: Gougères, fried squid, pig's-head fritters, tomato and aïoli toasts, radish and butter sandwiches, ham and butter sandwiches, and pork sausages

contorni: shellbean salad, long-cooked romano beans, carrot and caroway salad, spicy pickled vegetables, smoked eggplant salad on flatbread

plats principaux: roast pork loin, smoked pork shoulder, and grilled pork leg with polenta, greens and chiles; tripe and pig's feet cooked in the fireplace with flatbread; peperonata with polenta, greens, and chiles

Clearly, it was a whole-pig event; one of Russell's many virtues is his frugality — a virtue not to be confused with an absence of generosity. He's devoted to Slow and Local, two other peasant virtues as I think, as shows in his concentration on open-fire cooking and braises. Alas, having a long drive ahead of us, we left at eleven before the dessert was served — poached quince and prunes with sesame ice cream, with homemade doughnuts. It was a long, leisurely, loving meal, the fruit of decades of friendship and family, one of the great moments — the many great moments — we've enjoyed at table among friends.

Bourgogne rosé, Château de Puligny, 2009; Bourgogne blanc, Domaine Darnat, 1990;
Chablis, Vau de Vey (1° cru), 1997; Volnay blanc Pur Sang, 2007; Pouilly-Fumé, Silex, 1998;
Morgon, Chenaise, 1998; Pommard, Rugieu, 2006; Cornas, Lemeniciers, 1989

An extraordinary range of wines, many in magnums or double magnums from our host's twenty-year library of imports. The Chablis was magnificent, also the Pommard and Cornas; the other wines very fine indeed — what a generous gesture, and what a rare chance to extend one's wine knowledge!